A Habit of Reading

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

I've combined this blog with my original blog, Rockhound Place, as keeping up with four blogs is not something I can currently manage. I still have lots of book recommendations in my posts, and hope to start participating in Poetry Friday again when things around here settle down a bit. This blog still gets Google hits quite a bit, so I plan to keep it up, if not running, but all of my previous "A Habit of Reading" posts can now be found over at Rockhound Place.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Another little bit of serendipity came my way this week in the area of music meets poetry. Last week my PF post was a poem by Sara Teasdale ("April"), and three days later I sat down in a choir rehearsal to begin working on a song called "A Blessing," by New Zealand-born composer David N. Childs (SATB, piano, flute; published by Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Inc.). The lyrics just happen to be based on another poem by Sara Teasdale that I find very moving:

Thursday, March 26, 2009

I will love you more than meand more than yesterdayif you can but prove to meyou are the new day.

Send the sun in time for dawn,let the birds all hail the morning.Love of life will urge me say,you are the new day.

When I lay me down at nightknowing we must pay,thoughts occur that this night mightstay yesterday.

Thoughts that we as humans smallcould slow worlds and end it alllie around me where they fallbefore the new day.

One more day when time is running outfor ev'ryone,like a breath I knew would comeI reach for a new day

Hope is my philosophy,just needs days in which to be,love of life means hope for me,born on a new day.

Well, I don't know if it stands alone enough as a poem, but Welsh songwriter John David's song is very moving, especially as sung by The King's Singers (try to ignore Barney and the Teletubbies--I do):

The local community chorus with which I sing is singing an SATB arrangement (by former King's Singers member Peter Knight) of this song in our upcoming spring concert, along with some other lovely choices.

Poetry Friday is being hosted today by children's book author Julie Larios over at The Drift Record.

The rest of the poem tells of each of the other three seasons from the animals' perspectives. The other poems in the book are also told in the voices of various Snowshoe Hare--young ones, wise grandfather hare, and others. Carlstrom's usually spare verse doesn't verge into cutesieness, so, although this book is likely aimed at the four to eight crowd, older readers will also enjoy it.